Avure Technologies Inc. knows a thing or two about pressure, but after almost 30 years in the same location, the Battelle spinoff found it was the one being squeezed.

The maker of high-pressure presses and equipment relocated to Lewis Center in December from its home off Route 161 on Columbus’ northeast side.

“We needed to grow,” Business Unit Director Jerry Toops said. “Our product lines are getting larger. We needed more ceiling height, and our previous facility didn’t have a great layout.”

Avure’s 26,000-square-foot building is a large square, unlike the nearly 14,000-square-foot skinny rectangle it was housed in before, giving the business space to expand production and staffing. Toops said the 28-employee operation plans to add workers and could increase by as many as 20 without straining the new space.

CEO Pat Adams said 2011 was the best year in company history, its industrial business doubling what it was in 2006 and food products sales equal to the entire business from that year.

Worldwide presence

Avure’s roots extend to the 1950s when work in the field of isostatic pressure technology – forming and condensing powdered cast and preformed materials – was being conducted at Sweden’s AESA and Battelle in Columbus. Experts from those organizations formed what became Avure in 1981. The business has gone through several owners both foreign and domestic and a few names, but has been owned by private investors since 2005. Its headquarters is in Nashville, Tenn.

Toops said more than 1,200 presses bearing one of four names – AESA, ABB, Flow International and Avure – are operating in factories around the world.

The company is a heavy exporter, with about half its sales outside the U.S., he said. Worldwide sales represent more than $100 million a year from two major lines of business – industrial and food processing.

The industrial side makes the machines that produce parts for a wide range of industries, including aerospace, automotive, medical and oil and gas.

The food processing side, called high-pressure processing, is used to literally squeeze bacteria like listeria, salmonella and E. coli out of products such as sliced meats, seafood and salads. No heat is used in the process, which can extend product shelf life from one week to as much as 60 days. That business is comparatively new, started in the 1990s, Toops said. The operation in Sweden, then owned by ABB, is credited with making the first commercial machine, while initial tests using avocados were conducted in Columbus, according to Food Safety Magazine.

Multiple markets

Avure’s Central Ohio facility handles specialty systems and equipment that serve primarily small laboratories and pilot plants. It still runs a small food lab, but most of the food work is conducted in Nashville. A facility in Sweden makes the large equipment. The business also has a sales operation in Erie, Pa.

Toops said of the 1,200-plus Avure presses in the world, more than 500 are the small variety assembled in Central Ohio. The city operation also is a warehouse and shipping point for spare parts for many of the machines, even ones not produced here.

Avure machines are used to make a wide range of parts – drill bits, cutting tools, ball bearings, nozzles, airplane blades, knee and shoulder implants. Many customers are contract operations doing work for other manufacturers.

Toops said Avure is the largest producer of high-pressure vessels in the world, including cold and hot pressing machines and laminating.

Competitors such as Japan-based Kobe Steel Ltd. also do the vessels, but it is not a primary business. Cold pressing is done in many countries. Hot pressing is less common because the process is more difficult, he said.